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Prepared Fish

A baked fish dish finished with beaten egg yolk, egg white, butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Prepared Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish until quite soft.

  2. Pick the fish into small pieces and lay them on a flat dish.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then add a small piece of butter.

Add the eggs and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the well-beaten yolks of the eggs with the scalding milk and pour it over the fish.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and spread it over the surface of the dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for half an hour.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the base of the dish, providing the main body and flaky texture once boiled and picked.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard with fat and help bind the milk into a smooth, set layer.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they add lightness and set into an airy topping as it bakes.
Scalding milk
Adds moisture and softness, and combines with the yolks to form a custard.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to a stiff froth. Under-beaten whites collapse and make the topping dense, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and dry.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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